Former Clare TD resigns from Oireachtas Golf Society

Former Clare TD Dr Michael Harty has resigned from the Oireachtas Golf Society after it defied a request from Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl to disband.

He tendered his resignation to society president Donie Cassidy, a former Fianna Fáil TD and senator, in an email on Friday.

Dr Harty, a former captain of the society, is leaving it in the wake of the controversy over the August 19th dinner for some 80 people at a Connemara hotel that went ahead despite Covid-19 guidelines limiting the size of indoor gatherings.

He told Mr Cassidy in his email that he had “acknowledged my lapse of judgment in attending the dinner and have apologised unreservedly for this error”.

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Dr Harty added that Mr Ó Fearghaíl’s call for the society to disband “cannot and should not be ignored”.

The Ceann Comhairle this week described the dinner as being either “collective crass stupidity”, “arrogant delusion” or both, and said it should never have happened during the pandemic.

Mr Cassidy told Mr Ó Fearghaíl in a letter on Thursday that the society would suspend all future activities until after a Garda investigation into the golf dinner concluded. However, he stopped short of saying that the society would disband.

“I can also confirm that at our next agm and after the coronavirus pandemic has passed that we will, as you have suggested, carry out a full review of the current structure and the name of the society,” he told the Ceann Comhairle.

Dr Harty was captain of the golf society last year when members played at Lahinch Golf Club, where the former Independent TD is a member, a few months before the course hosted the Irish Open.